Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/696

 682 FEDERAL REPORTER. �the same. When we corne to consider how and hy wkat mets he may do this, the courts may, upon grounds of public policy and in the absence of legislation, see fit to confine the. father to the act of changing his own domicile; or, when they come to consider what acts shall be taken as evidence th^t the father has exercised his power of changing the child'a domicile, they may decline to consider any other than that of a change of his own domicile as conclusive. We find, when i\^ jurists consider the right of a surviving mother or guardian to change any ohild's or ward's domicile, they, wher& the right is conceded, qualify it by confining it to cases free from any frauduient purpose, such as changing the order of succession for their own benefit. The change will not be permitted to do this, while it may be effectuai for oth#r purposes. I do not, with the limited means at my command, find any trace of this qualification having been applied to the right of a father. to change his child's domicile ; but again I see no reason why it, should not be so, applied, whether we regard him as changing it by changing his own; or hj otlier means. This would. meet the objections urged against the principle in argument, but reallyit is a question not of international law, as applicable to independent oountries, but rather of muni'cipal regulations by the states, to be, governed by considerations of the peeuliar comity that. cornes of the anomalous relations they .bear to each other under our System of governraent. Whether the principle I have indicated exists, so that it has received recognition in all countries, is a question I am unable to answer ; but it certainly does, or did, obtain in France. Whether it is reoognized by the common law of England, or is otherwiae ther© established, s^ems; doubtful ; though the right of emancipation so as to change the child's domi- cile in the matter of parish settlements,.and the existence of that effect in all matters of domicile through the operation of the marriage of the infant, seems established. • It cannot, then, in any view, be unqualifiedly said, as was maintained in argument, that it is' a rule, without an exception, that a father cannot change the domfieile of hia child without changing his own, or that a minor child cannot acquire any different domicile from that of its father. �However these. questions would have tp:;be anawered where there was an entire absence of legislation, c)r in international tribunals, there can be no doubt that our Sttates., in their relation to ;each other, have eoutrol over the subject of emancipation of minora from parental control to the fullest extent, and that eaoh may preseribe the rules to govern it andlimit or extend.-it3' effects. Nothing was moro ��� �